(English by ChatGPT)
As I’ve written in previous posts, I’m always on the lookout for interesting Japanese content to help with my studies. Over the past ten years, there’s been a huge increase in appealing content—online programs, YouTube, podcasts, and so on.
But I’m greedy—in order to keep my motivation for studying high, I’m constantly searching all over the internet for things that are even more interesting and even fresher. 😆
Lately, my content hunt has been centered around topics I’m currently into: geography, earth sciences, astronomy, and related fields. In other words, I’m looking for answers to the simple questions that started popping into my head as an adult—what kind of place is Earth? What is our position in the universe?
If I can hear those answers in Japanese, I can satisfy my curiosity while also studying the language—killing two birds with one stone.
I’d like to introduce what I’ve found so far, in order of how interesting I found them:
① PIVOT EXTREME SCIENCE with Kenichiro Mogi and Ryuichiro Takeshita
(It seems that TBS Crossdig later took over the program from PIVOT.)
In this show, the two hosts invite a different expert guest each time for an interview. The conversations always get lively, so it’s a very enjoyable program.
② Audible audiobooks
They have books on every imaginable topic, and new ones are added every day, so I’d like to explore more.
③ NHK
I can watch it on NHK One or on the streaming service I subscribe to, UNext, but to be honest, it’s quite difficult to find programs that cover the topics I’m interested in. Since NHK is a public broadcaster, I think they really ought to make all the content they’ve produced available and ensure that anyone in Japan can easily search for it and watch it without any additional fees—that is, covered by the basic NHK subscription.
④ ReHacQ
I introduced this channel in a previous post. It’s not just politics—they occasionally feature interviews with scientists as well. But the low audio quality is still my pet peeve. They have millions of subscribers, hire tons of staff, and invite top-tier guests—so the fact that they can’t even set up audio equipment that even small-time YouTubers have is honestly unbelievable… Ah, I got carried away there. (lol)
Now, here’s the kind of Japanese content I’d like to see next:
① High-quality YouTube videos with strong visuals and narration.
When it comes to Earth- and space-related content like I mentioned above, this still seems to be underdeveloped.
In other words, not “Yukkuri explanation–style” videos, but something more carefully produced and content-focused.
② Podcasts
The EXTREME SCIENCE show I mentioned above can basically be listened to passively, so it’s almost like a podcast. But I’d love to see more audio content overall. When I check Spotify, there seem to be many good programs related to society and current affairs, but the science category still feels limited.
If you have any recommendations, please let me know.
By the way, how do you all discover foreign-language content?